Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

¹Lord, you have searched me out;
  O Lord, you have known me.
 ²You know my sitting down and my rising up;
  you discern my thoughts from afar.
 ³You trace my journeys and my resting-places
  and are acquainted with all my ways.
 ⁴Indeed, there is not a word on my lips,
  but you, O Lord, know it altogether. 
 ⁵You encompass me, behind and before,
  and lay your hand upon me.
 ⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
  it is so high that I cannot attain to it.
 ¹³For you yourself created my inmost parts;
  you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
 ¹⁴I will thank you because I am marvelously made;
  your works are wonderful, and I know it well. 
 ¹⁵My body was not hidden from you,
  while I was being made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth.
 ¹⁶Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb; all of them were written in your book;
  my days were fashioned before they came to be.
 ¹⁷How deep I find your thoughts, O God!
  How great is the sum of them!
 ¹⁸If I were to count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
  to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.

The psalmist describes an intimate God who knows us better than we know ourselves. A God who loves us so deeply, with whom we can struggle, argue, confess our darkest secrets, and be forgiven and be renewed.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, in these dark days of winter and pandemic we are struggling and in despair. We need you. Come into our hearts Lord Jesus. Come in today. Come in to stay. Amen.

          Don Knudson ’70 M.Div. Northwestern Lutheran Seminary